Sweet and sour: 10 thoughts on Cook County's dreaded beverage tax

To illustrate how mixed my mind is on Cook County’s new sweetened-beverage tax, here are 10 observations in search of a conclusion:

1. Sugary drinks aren’t good for you. They have virtually no nutritional value and are loaded with empty calories, and it’s more than reasonable for public health officials to attempt to discourage their consumption, particularly by children.

2. “Sin” taxes are reasonable. Governments need money to operate, and placing extra levies on nonessential products that carry additional societal costs (here, the added strain on our county’s health care system) is a fair way to raise that money.

The same logic that applies to cigarettes and alcohol applies to sugar water.

3. Cook County needs more revenue. Perhaps I’ve too easily fallen for Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle’s severe, no-nonsense demeanor, but her record of cutting the county’s payroll and other expenses while responsibly attacking the county’s pension debt persuades me that she’s not just looking to raise cash for frivolous projects.

4. The effort to justify the tax as a health initiative is too much, too late. The pro-tax TV commercials sponsored by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg — “just one soda a day can lead to an extra 10 pounds a year!” — have an over-the-top, “Reefer Madness” feel to them belied by experience and medical research.

But if sugary drinks are such a dire threat — “kidney failure,” “Type-2 diabetes” and “heart disease,” say the buttons on the pop machine in a Bloomberg ad — where was the public service campaign to reduce consumption before the tax came along? All these gloomy warnings would be considerably more persuasive if we’d been seeing them all along.

5. The tax is illogically broad. Like in Philadelphia, Cook County’s additional charge also applies to diet drinks, many flavored with zero-calorie stevia or aspartame, not just those containing generous amounts of sugar.

The Food and Drug Administration, the European Food Safety Authority, the American Cancer Society and the American Heart Association are among the arbiters who’ve OK’d aspartame, but if there is a medical argument for discouraging the use of artificial sweeteners in drinks and lumping diet pop in with regular soda for tax purposes, let’s actually have that discussion instead of dismissing it with a wave of the hand.

6. The tax is illogically narrow. Speaking of stuff that’s bad for you, what about chips? Candy? Foods high in carbohydrates and saturated fat? They all contribute to rampant obesity and its related health problems. Any argument for putting an extra tax on diet Snapple — my weakness — applies at least as strongly to putting an extra tax on Ho Hos, Milky Ways or Cool Ranch Doritos.

The Cook County tax also doesn’t apply to chocolate milk or to extremely sugary pure fruit juices.

Yes, the “where do you draw the line?” question would dog those attempting to separate favored from disfavored foods, but it can be done. In 2011, officials in Denmark assessed a per-pound tax on all foods containing more than 2.3 percent saturated fat (though it was so unpopular it was abandoned 15 months later).

And the U.S. Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children manages to draw sensible lines when generating a list of eligible edibles.

7. A government that uses tax policy to encourage healthy behavior isn’t a “nanny state.” I’ve heard the grumbling, but a “nanny state” forbids activities and products or requires certain acts in the name of health or safety. This is more like an example of the naggy state — a government that tries to pull you in the right direction with a tug on your pocket.

8. The tax misses a key target. Due to federal regulations, it does not apply to those who are on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, informally known as food stamps) and thus has no limiting effect on soda consumption in low-income communities that suffer disproportionately from obesity-related ailments.

9. The tax is too steep. A penny an ounce can increase the cost of a beverage by more than 50 percent. I’d rather see such a tax imposed as a percentage of the purchase price, the way standard sales taxes are imposed.

10. People honestly, genuinely, sincerely hate this tax.

Yes, supporters correctly point out that the beverage industry — Team Preckwinkle calls it “Big Soda” — is investing heavily in the campaign to have the tax repealed. Thursday, Citizens for a More Affordable Cook County, a new, industry-connected political action committee, made note of the sweetened beverage tax in announcing its intention to support Cook County Board candidates "who will make the county more affordable for working families and easier for small businesses to thrive.”

But no amount of advertising and pious invocations of personal freedom could possibly inspire the suffocating antipathy with which the public seems to regard the tax. Polls have shown more than 80 percent in opposition, in part, I gather from my many conversations on the subject, because the politicians, Preckwinkle in particular, didn’t adequately lay the financial or medical groundwork to generate at least grudging acceptance when the tax went into effect in August.

This is grass-roots hatred. It’s hard to imagine that the tax will survive a repeal effort that is expected to be introduced at Wednesday’s Cook County Board meeting.

But those commissioners who plan to vote to abolish the reviled tax ought to come armed with specific plans to address the problems it was designed to attack.

“No” is a vote, but it’s not an answer.

Second item: Biss blunder another reason to end the ‘lite gov’ silliness -- link here

Re: Tweets

The winner of our online poll for funniest tweet of the week was @Playwfiret0day with: “Dentist: Open up, please. Me: Sometimes I get sad.”